You are looking at a 6 lap race. You should ride it as a race of attrition, because a lot of people will fade by the end of lap 4. I did this 2 weeks ago, and finished 12th. There is a lot of climbing and a lot of twisty turns. It is a fun course. If it is windy, bring layers.....it will be COLD! The race has a great end of season, let's all have a blast vibe. You'll dig it. See you all Saturday!

ill be sitting out for Long Island, but I will be doing the cat 4/5 race and 2/3/4 race at limestone on Sunday. Who is going and needs a ride? 4/5 race starts at 8am and I would like to get there at 7am. leaving from jersey city around 5am if you would like to join in. I have my bike shops van so I have plenty of room for gear but only have 1 seat available, and a open floor in the van

Notes from NBX: The Fires of Warwick

With a persistent and heavy rain falling all day Friday and well into the wee hours of a very chilly Saturday morning, I was confident that "morning race club" racers would be greeted by some combination of mud and ice. I was wrong. With the exception of a few muddy dips and turns, the course at Goddard Memorial Park in Rhode Island drained exceptionally well.

Getting to the race course the Todd McLoughlin prescribed 2 hours early proved to be impossible this weekend. Despite our hotel's close location, getting the family up before 5am for an 8am start is just inhumane. And so with just enough time to pick up my number and do 2.5 laps of warm-up, I would have to be satisfied that I would be ready to go.

It should be noted, in the interest of my continuing "compare and contrast" series whereby I think about how to help make sure Supercross is even better next year, that there was part of the NBX course, less than one hour from start time, that was still not taped off. It got done, obviously, but sort of not pro and made me thankful that we had enough volunteer power to at least make sure our course was set the night before. (Even if the wind tore shit up by the next morning.)

Since I had been bleeding crossresults points all year, I lined up on the 4th row about 35-ish guys from the front. In years past, the start had been a virtual facimile of the style of starts at both Gloucester and Providence. I really could have used the long rising pavement before the first foray onto the grass. Alas, no. This year, inexplicably, they moved us up to start on the grassy-plains section of the course, and while the initial turns were acceptably wide, we were too quickly (for 100+ rider fields) funneled into rooty-muddy single track. And so with a mediocre start I was burried even deeper in the field and within 60 seconds of the start I was at a virtual stand-still and saying goodbye to any hope of a good finish.

By the time I got moving again though, things went well. The legs were good. One thing about racing in the Cat 4 scrub zone, is that you can feel like superman. But while the course had a good balance of features, I still needed more straight bits to really open up the legs. But when it did, oh boy did I blow by people like they were standing still. Which is both exciting and depressing. Because let's review here. My threshold wattage? Around 250 these days. And while it is also true, my snap and acceleration are still quite good and I manage my meager power numbers pretty well, it's still a little depressing that for the first 3/4 of the race, I'm blitzing past riders who managed to out-start me and get through the hole-shot funnel first.

My mini-depression about my start was not going to stop me from trying my best, including a very long beach run with a stair run-up and log jump down to asphalt that I totally rocked, thank you very much. I caught many a group of riders there. Before cross, I used to run a lot. And I was pretty okay at it. The pavement stretches were good for me too...because you know, crit racer here! And short zippy rock/root-free single-track climbs are always welcomed.

In the end, I wasn't aggro enough in some pine-forested twisty bits and let 3 hosers push me off my line with just 1/8 of a lap to go. I couldn't get them back and rolled in 15th place in the masters 35+ Cat 4/5 field.

Day two was even colder. The plains of grass had frost covered tips, the standing water that I rode through intentionally to clear some sand from my equipment on the pavement from day 1 were now great and wide sheets of ice. And to add to the drama, as I began to warm-up for my race, I noticed that my breaks and shifters were FROZEN.

Yes, proud-as-punch that I cleaned off my bike so well on the previous day, I didn't think twice about leaving said dripping wet bike in the trunk overnight when sub-freezing temperatures blanketed the area. Fortunately, the Shimano neutral support guys were already set up and ready to go and busted out all kinds of de-greaser, de-icer, pasty super-duper grease bombs here and there, plus helpful advice. Shimano, after working on my bike, waved his hand in a big circle all around my beloved Jake the Snake and said, "You're going to have to replace...you know all of...that." He was referring to my drive train, but he doesn't even know about my trick indexed steering!

After the Shimano guys got my bike shifting and breaking more normally, I had lost valuable "hot lap" time. Fortunately, there was extra bonus warm up time, while they re-routed the ice-covered portions of the course. This gave me time to practice the hole-shot and some of the tricky corners over and over again. I was ready to go.

So, I think we need, as volunteers and organizers to get to our race course double ass extra early so that we can take care of any problems that cropped up overnight and have racing go off as scheduled. Riders understand these kinds of delays, but to be honest, most of the time, they don't need to happen if we set our alarms an hour earlier. Which is FUH-early, but a sacrifice I am willing to make to help ensure a super-pro event for ALL categories.

It's also worth noting here, that Adam Myerson's advice to Jules and Co during a workshop, "say no free speed" rang especially true on at least 5 of the courses corners and I found myself repeating the mantra on some stretches where I was tempted to blow out my turbo charger. After struggling on day 1 with one particular section leading into the final sprint, I camped out at that corner during the pro warm-up period and watched riders like Mike Garrigan and Dan Timmerman take the corner at speed, and double back around to try it again and again, until they nailed it. I did the same during the unexpected extra warm-up period taking the turn at least 8 times before I felt confident I had it dialed in.

And finally, with the icy bits removed from the course, we were off. My start was marginally better than the previous day, but the madness at the funnel into forest was worse. Guys were going down left and right. A rutted-out muddy dip in the road caused many wrecks and I had to stop and run the stretch. This particular spot sent my rage-o-meter into red because I know why there were crashes here. Because the deep ruts, the cold temps; I'm sure freaked folks out, sure they would crash if they didn't get their line because of what they assumed were frozen walls of mud. BUT THEY WERE NOT FROZEN. At all. You could ride right through the mud/dirt. And if more folks were out pre-riding the course, practicing alternate lines in anticipation of opening lap craziness, they would have learned this.

And like on day 1, when the lanes started opening up, I started passing at every opportunity. It's bitter-sweet. With every slow guy I blow by like he's standing still on lap 2, a little raging anger-fire lights up within me, sparking thoughts of what could/should have been. Day 2 brought an additional tricky climb/descent into a deep sand run-up that sent me into the red-zone a few times. It was fun, super fun really.

Those turns that I practiced pre-race ad nauseum? When in traffic, it backfired as I found myself zooming into the dopey wheels of the less-practiced in front of me, but ultimately, I suspect I was the better off for my extra effort in warm-ups. In the end, I could only manage to claw my way back to 13th place amongst the master's.

One particularly nice feature on the race course were about 5 fully-stoked fire pits (one conveniently located by the food trucks) that helped keep spectators warm while watching the pro-racing action.

One particularly NOT nice feature on the race course? Several of the turns had huge piles of leaves on the apex of the turns. As chief-raker in charge of our race, I am proud to say, we had not stupid piles of leaves left on the course.

Thanks for the thoughts Gwynna. I agree, trying to capitalize on your strengths is definitely one of the things any successful crosser has to do. I only wish I had more time this season to better sort some of this stuff out. #21racesandIstillwantmore

@Marc I so enjoy your race reports.  Yes it's hard to race without ideal prep/time/fitness/etc but you do it often and with grace and persistence, so you shouldn't be bummed about a top 15 masters result.

Marc Bertucco said:

Notes from NBX: The Fires of Warwick
It should be noted, in the interest of my continuing "compare and contrast" series whereby I think about how to help make sure Supercross is even better next year, that there was part of the NBX course, less than one hour from start time, that was still not taped off. It got done, obviously, but sort of not pro and made me thankful that we had enough volunteer power to at least make sure our course was set the night before. (Even if the wind tore shit up by the next morning.)

One particularly NOT nice feature on the race course? Several of the turns had huge piles of leaves on the apex of the turns. As chief-raker in charge of our race, I am proud to say, we had not stupid piles of leaves left on the course.

Marc, 

mugwump said:

Marc, 

I see race promotion in your future.

Dear lord no, no way, ever...but if I can help Myles and crew get Berden, Powers and all the other pros to Supercross, sans start money, just because our race is so fully of sloppy awesomesauce, then I'll be happy.

Hotlist apologizes for lack of a hotlist this week--I just ran out of time this week. Since a few Kissena's are also slated to race this weekend, Hotlist promises to get one more hotlist out before we say nighty-night to the most beautiful dream season of them all.

jim_nelson said:

A big shout out to Nelson for winning the Cat 4 NJCX overall (though he doesn't have a team listed....).

And Konrad in 5th place.

And Todd with an 8th in the B's

And a bunch of others in the top 20 across various fields.

And we got 6th in the team competition - highest ranking non-NJ based team.

http://www.njbikeracing.com/files/2013/2013CXCup12913.pdf

Nice work all.

Thanks Jim!  also I thought I fixed my team name. is it because I joined the team late in the year?

Have a look at your USA Cycling profile. You can assign team name and even a web link there.

It may be worth getting in touch with the NJ association to get the team name thing fixed, because it sounds like there's a chance that some of Nelson's great finishes didn't get credited/pointed to Kissena?

Marc Bertucco said:

It may be worth getting in touch with the NJ association to get the team name thing fixed, because it sounds like there's a chance that some of Nelson's great finishes didn't get credited/pointed to Kissena?

It's worth trying, but these things are always harder retroactively, and easy as pie to do beforehand.

3) and your bikereg.com profile ! 

Rick, Harry, Kayt and I braved the blizzard like conditions for a fast and fun race in the at Long Island's Kings Park Psychiatric. The big debate was whether to ride in our Winter jackets given the windy 20 degree conditions. The snow wasn't deep, but it made for some slippery turns and given that much of the course tape was white... well you can imagine the importance of pre-riding so you didn't pull a Sanossian and ride off course. Speaking of David, he wasn't able to make it, but his advice not to overdo it in the first half of the race was critical for this 50 minute race.

If you ain't flyin' you ain't tryin!

#raphaepicrace awsomeeeee

Don't know if anyone is following the results from this weekend's UCI racing in NC, but I think it's very interesting that in a smallish field, while the usual suspects are on top (Powers, Johnson, Wells, Werner), scroll down a few places to 16th and you'll find Cycle-Smart Coach and 35+ Verge Series Champ Alec Donahue, 20 seconds in front of Adam Myerson! This result probably comes as no surprise to regular Northeast crossers, but it's a bit of confirmation that the 35+ category leaders could realistically compete in the UCI elite category if they could be happy with fighting for 15-20th place. Of course on the flip side, Donahue was 1 minute down on his charges, Anthony Clark and Stephen Hyde...

Alec Donahue co-ran the clinic with Myerson at Providence.  Super nice guy, fwiw.

li-cx, 14dec:
22dF, snowy, frozen ground.

interesting all category mass start; ie.choose your start position, 30+ racers incl. KCC's patrickG, kaytW&rickP ~ cold, icy, snowy grass course w/a long slight up-hill start; n top10 @1st turn, plan 2keep patrick in sight, cold fingers, wide variety of bikes including: mtBikes, fat tire mtBikes, single speed, &a fully tricked-out holiday decorated cx bike! pre-rode course one lap w/kayt, so, 1st lap caution prevailed &accounted in-part for distance @200m by lap2 start/finish to patrick&co up-front in lead group, found my-self racing the 'tween space' between leaders& a second group(a pair) of strong fat-tire teammates with whom i traded places @every other turn then passed convincingly on long straights, (2)more laps, (1)high speed fall(caught-up in course tape, btw, i prefer break-away tape) on icy back-straight; broke ahead of one &split the pair, other stayed ahead; lap(3) past start/finish a rider on a mtBike 'chris' pulled onto course ahead of me, passed him into turn1 &traded places most every turn for next 2laps w/plenty of fan encouragement ALL around for 'chris' i enJOYed the game of blocking, accelerating &holding turns, i could win on flats making up 50-100m in places, then dogged him in the flat technical turns &passed him back; sadly, i fell again not once, but, twice having to run a hill on the last lap at the treacherous icey hair-pin turn w/30m up-hill return, this opened a gap of @30m, which i should have been able to make-up in the final (2)straights, but we where both now in lapped rider traffic; plus 'chris' had left a bit in his tank &extended the gap to 50m by the finish...i did'nt fade finished strongly...seems we finished @8&9th/30+ on the day well-back of patrickG &leaders.

afterwords, i rode over &congratulated 'chris' &he complimented me on riding in the turns...that felt good. ...fun! cold, fast, mostly flat course, well, worth the excellent KCC ride-out fromBk (50min) w/rickP&kaytM plus an awesome brunch @the Relish Diner!

Limestone Cross at the Kiln report:

Marc and I drove out to Emmaus, PA yesterday through the ice and snow for the last MAC race of the year.  Although laziness and poor road conditions almost kept me at home, I'm glad I went.   It turned out to be a really fun and productive day. 

Nelson was 8th (I think) in the 4's.  He also doubled back and held his own in the 2/3/4.  Marc was 16th and I was 10th in the 2/3/4.  All very solid results.  For me, 10th is the best I've finished in a MAC race.  Actually, top 10 in a MAC race was one of my secret (now not-so-secret) goals for the year.

The course was ... um ... snow and mud.  For the most part, there was only one ridable line, and the snow made the course features irrelevant.  If it was uphill, you ran.  If there was a sharp turn followed by another sharp turn, you ran.  If you bobbled, you ran.  If you were running, you kept running until there was a downhill or pavement.  In total there were 6-7 dismounts per lap, 2-3 of which involved a good bit of running, including one throw-yourself-down-the-hill, hope-you-land-on-your-feet, downhill, off-camber run.

The start was chaotic, and, for me, ended with a face-plant into the snow.  Although face-planting at the start is never good, in this case, I don't think it hurt me too much.  After a few laps of picking my way through slower riders, I was up with two guys I have been racing with all year.  The three of us fought out the final few laps of the race amongst ourselves.  I finished in the middle of the three, in 10th place. 

That's all the CX for me this year.  ... Now it's time to get back to work.  Ha.         

 

The Bertucco addendum:

Emotionally scarred from the icey conditions at Sterling a few weeks back, and incredibly anxious about what could be waiting for us at Limestone, I must have changed my mind at least 1000 times during the week and even in the last hour leading up to when Todd and I would have to leave for the race. My wife Sarah had this helpful bit of advice, "Well, I'd rather you stay home with Peter and I, but if you are just going to play on your computer, you might as well go out and race."

And there you have it, kicked out of the house by my wife, I decided that I would travel the 2 hours to Emmaus and suit up. And if race conditions made my manhood shrink into obscurity, then I would simply take photos of the much manlier Todd and Nelson kicking up snow and mud in their competitor's eyes.

We arrived to a course covered in inches, maybe a foot deep of snow, with a single muddy single-track stripe leading the way. The sun was shining, and having still not registered, I was still free from stress. I suited-up, swapped out my Fangos for Limus tyres and hoped onto the snowy walkways between the confines of the course.

I watched Roger Aspholm calmly motor away off the front of the 35+ field, taking note of his mud/snow-riding technique on one particular rideable (if you did it right) climb. I puttered around some more and instead of getting more anxious and scared, I got more relaxed and comfortable. And that was that, all the pressure was off. I was racing the harder "Killer Bs" category as a day-of registrant, from the back row, in conditions that were certainly outside of my wheelhouse (or where they?) and so I felt no pressure. My one hot-lap revealed lots of snow and mud and difficult conditions in which to ride. But what it also revealed was nothing DANGEROUS. We weren't talking the rock-hard frozen hills of Sterling. These were plush, slushy muddy slip-n-slides.

I had no fear. So what if I fell down into some muddy drift of snow? And so as I tackled the multiple sharp drop-off off-camber descents, I let go of the brakes, unclipped my inner foot and let 'er rip. The running stretches I turned myself inside out...such a joy to be able to get traction from my toe spikes running up snow covered hills!

In fact, the only moment where I came "this close" to fear, was at the start, when I got a raging head of steam heading from the pavement as it transitioned into snow. I was going FAST, really really fast. (and continued throughout the race on this particular transitioning section, catching guys who were 20-30 bike lengths in front of me). Unfortunately on the opening lap, the dudes in front of me (all of them, as I was the last guy off the line) apparently decided to get off their bikes and make snow-angels in the ground. I could barely grab hold of enough brakes to keep my self from running right into the back of 8 or 9 guys sprawled out everywhere.

Narrowly avoiding crashitude. I remount and start to pedal, shouting at runners to get off the rideable line. It all felt rather hilarious. Up a little hill, around a couple of 180s, more crashing in front of me. I dismount early, shoulder Jake the Snake and start running like NYRR club ringer from Africa. I pass more and more guys. Soon I'm on Todd's wheel.

HOLY SCHNIKEY! I'm racing with Todd "F-ing" McLoughlin!!! I contemplate quitting right there and then knowing my season was complete. How could it get any better than this moment? He endos, I PASS. HOLY CRAP, I just passed Todd "F-ing" McLoughlin!" What the hell is going on here? I continue pedaling. Soon he gathers his parts and motors up-to and past me. But not that far past me. I spend the next lap or so within a few pedal strokes of his rear wheel. He's kind of slowed down by a jamoke in front of him who is not that great. But venturing outside of the mud-stripe, means instant bog-down in the thick snow. Just two or three spots to pass on the whole course.

Eventually Todd gets by slow dude and says good bye to me and the rest. I continue to motor, having fun, riding calmly, and in control. Damn Adam Myerson's voice still in my head (why can't I have visions of Mo Brunno Roy whispering sweet advice in my ear?), "No free speed" as I approach muddy turns with much lest gusto than I would like. And still, it worked. Guys were blowing by me because I was going "too slow" only to end up in the tape and off course.

In the last few turns of the race, a guy makes a really aggressive pass but can't hold onto it and ends up in the snow, in the tape, while I putter around on the inside muddy line. He mutters in frustration, "that's it, I'm done." And I think, "yes, yes you are."

Couldn't be happier with the finish to my uneven and stressful season of cross. I really can't believe how much fun I had in those conditions. And in retrospect, I have to wonder that if the conditions were dry with no snow, would I have done better than 16th place from a 30-ish place back-row start of a 2/3/4 race? Maybe I'm more of a slop-rider than I think...

Epilogue: After the race with mud-nasty bicycles to travel home, dreading bringing that thing into my apartment, I ask the local Rotary Club guys selling brats if they knew of one of those "do it yourself" car wash bays in the area. Turns out not only where the post-race brats delicious, but there was a car wash bay with a super high pressure HOT water gun hose contraption that got both of our bikes (and Todd's car) looking show-room new in less than 4 minutes.

Awesome work guys. Awesome.

Great report....well done. BTW, I haven't heard anyone use the word "jamoke" in a long time. Beautiful.

One last "hotlist" for the year?? A lot of good stuff going on!

ZOMG!

Supercross - Superprestige.

Super ready?